Delaware & Northern Construction version 1.0

Started by jerryrbeach, February 05, 2018, 09:11:43 PM

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jerryrbeach

I have started construction of the Delaware & Northern Railroad version 1.0. 

The prototype was originally organized in 1904 as the Delaware & Eastern, and trains were running over the line by 1906.  The tracks connected with the New York, Ontario & Western in East Branch and with the Ulster & Delaware in Arkville, running for 37 miles along the East Branch of the Delaware River near the western edge of the Catskill Mountains.  After an attempt to extend the railroad to Middleburg, NY and a connection with the Schoharie & Middleburg failed miserably leaving the railroad awash in debt, the D&E filed bankruptcy in 1910, and emerged as the Delaware & Northern.  New York City bought the railroad in 1939 to allow them to build a dam at Downsville, NY, creating the Pepacton Reservoir to supply water to the city.  Today over half of the Delaware & Northern roadbed resides at the bottom of the reservoir, along with the villages and farms that once occupied the valley.

I live alone in a large farmhouse.  Despite extensive remodeling including wall and ceiling insulation, replacement windows, and new siding my house is very expensive to heat.  In the winter I close off the entire upstairs, move my dining room furniture to the living room, bring a few comfortable chairs into the dining room, and close off the living room as well.  Because of this, potential bedroom or basement locations for a layout suffer from a lack of heat.  After spending some time thinking about how I might build a layout, I decided the best approach would be to construct something easy to disassemble and move in the future.

In the past couple months I have worked through several failed attempts to design a layout that could be disassembled for moving.  I constructed and then discarded components that were too cumbersome to move easily, others that lacked rigidity, and some that warped after assembly.  In short, I found designing lightweight portable construction to be its own challenge. 

I have settled on a module or domino system for construction using separate tables, each with its own complete set of legs. This was done so that I can assemble or disassemble the layout by myself without worrying about how to support a section that lacks all four legs.  I built it so the table tops detach from the leg assemblies for ease of relocation, thinking that would make it easier to negotiate stairs.  Each table is connected to the adjoining table with carriage bolts.  At this time, the  layout consists of three modules, two that are 30" x 48" and bolt end to end.  A third 24" by 36" table is bolted to the front left side of one of the larger modules, resulting in an L shaped layout with an overall dimension of 66" by 96".  It currently resides in one corner of my dining room, but is sized so that it will fit into a spare bedroom.  It could also become part of a larger basement layout should I decide to go that route.

If you want to come along for the ride, get your ticket, grab a coach seat, and settle in for a slow and somewhat bumpy ride, not unlike passenger service on the real Delaware & Northern. 
Jerry

MAP

Mark


S&S RR

I just paid for my ticket - I'm along for the ride.  Sounds like a great project.
John Siekirk
Superior & Seattle Railroad

Blazeman

Like anything, you have to build it from the ground up. You're taking the best path....getting a solid foundation or in your situation, a foundation both solid and mobile, one step at a time, assessing, then revising or moving to the next one. Your patience and persistence is admirable. Will look in on your reports.

ACL1504

Jerry,

Count me in with all the others. I'll be watching and learning.

Tom ;D
"If we are to guard against ignorance and remain free, it is the responsibility of every American to be informed."
Thomas Jefferson

Tom Langford
telsr1@aol.com

jerryrbeach

Quote from: MAP on February 06, 2018, 07:42:51 AM
I'll be following along, bumpy ride and all.

Mark,
It got really bumpy in the later years, some rail joints were a couple inches apart.   Thanks for coming along.
Jerry

jerryrbeach

Jerry

jerryrbeach

Quote from: Blazeman on February 06, 2018, 08:08:11 AM
Like anything, you have to build it from the ground up. You're taking the best path....getting a solid foundation or in your situation, a foundation both solid and mobile, one step at a time, assessing, then revising or moving to the next one. Your patience and persistence is admirable. Will look in on your reports.

Thanks for coming on the ride.  I'm going to post a few of my not so successful ideas in hopes of saving someone else time and effort.
Jerry

jerryrbeach

Quote from: ACL1504 on February 06, 2018, 09:17:53 AM
Jerry,

Count me in with all the others. I'll be watching and learning.

Tom ;D

Tom,
Really glad to have you along.  I strongly suspect you'll be doing a lot more watching than learning.
Jerry

jerryrbeach

The conductor has hollered, "All aboarrrd', and I can hear the whistle echoing off the surrounding hills, so lets get this party started.

My house, except for a small addition was built prior to 1900.  Like most houses of this age, things sag.  That means simply, there is not a level floor to be found.  I had to have some kind of adjustable legs to keep the layout level.  I thought, "Why not use furniture hardware to attach and adjust the legs?"   

First of all, the plastic feet were too soft and deformed easily.  That was an easy fix, replace the feet with PVC pipe caps.  I made some 2x2 legs by ripping 2x4's and drilled the ends for the leveling feet.  I used 5/16" Tee nuts, 3/4" PVC pipe caps, and 5/16" x 2 1/2" carriage bolts. This solved the leveling problem.  I was off and running. 

I should mention the most difficult part of making the leg levelers was centering the hole I drilled in the PVC pipe caps.  The ends of the caps were rounded and the drill bit wanted to wander off center despite using a center punch to mark the hole location. 
Jerry

jerryrbeach

I fastened a 1"x4" to the bottom of the layout and screwed the commercial leg hardware to it.  Then I drilled the 2x2' legs and inserted a hanger bolt in the end.  The hanger bolts have a 5/16" machine thread on one end that fits into the leg hardware, a lag on the other that goes into the end of the leg.  I screwed the lag end into the leg, tightened the threaded end into the bracket, and my table shook like a willow in a windstorm.  I added horizontal and diagonal bracing.  Much better, but still not as rigid as I would like.

Now I am guessing you already see the problem with all this...   Once I added the bracing, it was no longer easy to detach the legs from the table.  First, all the bracing had to be removed, then the layout needed to be supported while each leg was unscrewed.  Back to the drawing board...

I decided to move on and build the table tops while I waited for inspiration to solve the leg problem.     
Jerry

Janbouli

I love photo's, don't we all.